Summer #4 of... Restoration?

[Sphe]

Hello all, I just thought I'd stop in and say hello.

If you dont know who I am I posted "Restoration has begun!" and "Summer of restoration" number 2 and 3. Well last summer ended in disaster, seemingly frying all the wires. I think we need a new wiring harness, but I'll get to that later.

Anyway as far as I go, I have now graduated college. That's right, I am now a Rensselaer Alumni, with my degree in Mechanical Engineering. I moved to Florida! And I live with my fiancee (i got  engadged about 6 months ago). I work for a engineering consulting firm in Orlando!

But this also means I'm very very far away from my 230SL (. I dont really know whats going to happen. But right now I'm working on paying off my own bills for the first time, and saving up to buy a house. Appartment living is ok, but only allows two cars parked out front. But then I'd have to get it shipped alll the way down here... And that'd cost a lot of money too, a lot of which I dont have right now. So it all boils down to... I really miss the 230 SL... But I still glance through the forums now and again to see what you guys are up to.

But back to the wires. Using a multimeter, every wire seemed grounded.Does it sound like i need a new wiring harness? and how much does something like that cost? and I imagine it's the most frustrating thing to put in. If anyone has any insight on this problem let me know. Maybe i can get my dad motivated to do something.

Anyway! Enjoy everyone! And love your Pagodas!

Eugene
1965 230SL, Max Speed: Zero


P.s. Anyone from Florida that would like to say hi and introduce themselves feel free. I need to know who I can turn to for a little local assistance someday when the car makes it's trip down!

[George Des]

Eugene,

Been a while since I checked on the price of the wiring harness with Rhode Island Wiring, but the main harness--the one up front that covers the engine, headlights, heater, etc is fairly expensive--about $950.00 when I last looked. The back harness is not all that expensive. Even if you go this route, you need to use all your original connectors, pins and sockets as I understand it, so it is not a drop in replacement. I explored going this route several years ago and decided that I could rebuild my own using materials available from RIW. They have pretty much everything you need (except the parts I already mentioned) including the color coded wiring, both plastic and fabric covered--our cars have both e.g. the starter and fuel pump wiring is fabric covered--and the correct harness covering--both vinyl and woven fabric--again both coverings are used on the car--at least the 230SL anyway. The rebuild is fairly straight-forward, but you do have to proceed methodically and carefully, observing the correct guage of wiring and how the covering is applied with respect to the various branches. You'll need to do quite a bit of soldering of pins and sockets, but you'd need to do this on a new harness as well. I did mine as winter project and saved quite a bit of money in the process,

George Des

[dwilli3038]

Congratulations on getting your ME degree from the 2nd best Engineering School in NY.

When you are checking your wires with the mulimeter take care to disconnect the other end of the wire. Do not trust that the switches, solenoids etc are truely preventing a connection to ground from lights etc.

Daryl Wiliams
ME from Clarkson
230 SL